This month was a bit up and down, but my meds have been tweaked (yet again) and I’ve definitely noticed an improvement in my mood. YAYNESS! Now if I can just channel that into getting things read and written…

ARCs Received

Someone You Can Build a Nest in, Fathomfolk, and Merciless Saviors are all some of my most anticipated reads of next year, so yes, there was squeeing when I was approved for their arcs! Be the Sea was a book I hadn’t heard of before it showed up on Netgalley, but it looks very promising indeed. A Magical Girl Retires has an incredible premise, and A Dark and Drowning Tide is giving me Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries vibes, but dark and gothic and sapphic, so that looks like it’s going to be a very fun time as well!

Read

20 books read this month – I think I’m slowly getting back into my groove! I’m afraid the first collection of Welcome to Night Vale episodes, Mostly Void, Partially Stars, failed to move me – as did Cursebreakers, which I was really looking forward to. The Navigating Fox actively pissed me off, and I am so grateful I finished Harpist in the Wind because now I don’t have to look at Patricia McKillip’s Riddle Master trilogy EVER AGAIN. (I’ve enjoyed a lot of her other books, but I hated this trilogy with a passion.)

But A Power Unbound and System Collapse were both, as expected, delights, I fell completely in love with Shadow Baron and Godly Heathens, and The Free People’s Village ripped my heart right out of my chest, which frankly was uncalled for. This was my second time reading All the Hidden Paths, but honestly, it was just as exquisite this time around. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of rereading Meadows.

To the best of my knowledge, 20% of this month’s books had BIPOC authors. Better than most months!

Reviewed

I really wanted to get more reviews written this month, but it just didn’t happen. I’m pretty happy with how the Godly Heathens review turned out, though.

DNF-ed

To Cage a God and So Let Them Burn were already on my in-progress most anticipated of 2024 list, but I’ve had to cut them – imo, they’re both pretty terrible. The Scandalous Letters of V and J I might come back to in the future, but the rest were total disappointments.

ARCs Outstanding

I’m behind, I’m behind, I’m behind. I think six of these have already been released, and where are my reviews??? Nowhere to be found. Sigh. I’m working on it, but slowly.

Misc

This month I had to give my Kindle a factory reset – the battery kept dying, and the last time this was a problem, the reset fixed it. I think it’s worked, but that leaves me with the Herculean task of putting all my books back on it, and arranging them in collections and all again. I’m a bit obsessive about it, so it’s going to take me a while!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Sunday Soupçons feature, and I’m pretty torn about it. I’m tempted to just start posting my mini-reviews as their own posts – my mini-reviews tend to be as long as most bloggers’ normal reviews anyway! – but I like my little banner graphic, and I will admit it makes no kind of sense, but mini-reviews snuggled up together in one post feels cosy??? So you might see me going back and forth for a bit, posting some mini-reviews individually, and some (especially shorter ones) still grouped in Sunday Soupçons, while I figure out which I prefer.

Last but CERTAINLY not least – HE Edgmon featured my review of Godly Heathens on their insta!!! *swoons* Thank you to the SNEAKIEST OF SAMS for linking them to it <3

Looking Forward

I only found out by PURE CHANCE that Miles Cameron’s Beyond the Fringe is out next month – at the very end of next month; the 31st of December is possibly the weirdest day of the year to release a book, but whatever, I’ll take it. It’s a collection of short stories set in the world of Artifact Space, which I adore – next year we’re getting the sequel!

December also has us getting Ada Hoffman’s first short story collection, and long-awaited sequels in the forms of All the Hidden Paths and Paladin’s Faith. I can’t wait for any of these!!! (I’ve read the arc of All the Hidden Paths twice now, but if you think I won’t be reading the finished version too, you clearly don’t know me very well!)

Wishing all of us a delightful December!